Selasa, 19 Juni 2012

Doctors' strike: GPs will still be paid as 1.25m appointments are cancelled

Doctors' strike: GPs will still be paid as 1.25m appointments are cancelled

  • At least 40 per cent of doctors expected to strike
  • Dispute is over doctors receiving a pension of £68,000
  • At least nine of the 50 primary care trusts in England won't cut GPs' pay
  • They include Buckingham and Oxfordshire, Bristol, Berkshire, Derbyshire
  • NHS Stockport said it would find it too difficult to calculate any deductions

By Sophie Borland

PUBLISHED: 16:37 EST, 18 June 2012 | UPDATED: 01:41 EST, 19 June 2012

Thousands of family doctors will be paid despite striking on Thursday.

Health trusts have decided not to dock salaries even though the GPs will refuse to treat almost all their patients.

They claim that a day's pay â€" £430 to a typical GP on £110,000 a year â€" is merited because urgent cases will still be dealt with.

Strike action: British Medical Association members will go on strike over doctors receiving a £68,000 a year pension

Strike action: British Medical Association members will go on strike over doctors receiving a £68,000 a year pension

But a practice chief at one NHS trust said: 'It is effectively saying to doctors â€" "You take what action you like, we will still pay you".

'My colleagues and I are absolutely incensed. This is absolutely outrageous.'

Around 1.25million appointments, tests and operations will be cancelled when British Medical Association members take their industrial action over pensions.

With at least 40 per cent of doctors expected to strike, the impact will be felt in hospitals as well as local surgeries.

Daniel Poulter, a Tory MP who is also a hospital doctor, said: 'A doctors primary duty is to look after patients, and yet a strike will see operations cancelled, and patients lives being potentially put at risk.

'The public will be even more shocked to learn that doctors are still going to paid on the day that they strike. If they are going to strike on Thursday, doctors should hand back their pay.

Around 1.25million appointments, tests and operations will be cancelled when the industrial action takes place

Around 1.25million appointments, tests and operations will be cancelled when the industrial action takes place

'The public will not understand why doctors are striking over receiving a pension of £68,000. This is the kind of generous pension that many hard working people in both the public and private sector can only ever dream of receiving.'

Employers generally have the right to withhold pay from strikers or reduce it when only limited duties are performed.

But at least nine of the 50 primary care trusts in England have decided not to cut GPs' pay â€" largely because of the difficulty of doing so.

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Although surgeries are funded by trusts, GPs are paid directly by the surgeries and are effectively self-employed.

The position is different for hospital doctors, who are employees. In most cases, they will lose pay unless they can make up the lost working hours in their own time.

None of the 25 organisations contacted by the Mail confirmed pay would be docked for family doctors.

Trusts not cutting pay include Buckingham and Oxfordshire, Bristol, Berkshire, Derbyshire, Nottingham, South-West Essex, Sussex and Cheshire, Warrington and Wirral.

Secretary of State for Health Andrew Lansley has urged GPs to consider opening their surgeries this Saturday to help deal with the backlog of appointments

Secretary of State for Health Andrew Lansley has urged GPs to consider opening their surgeries this Saturday to help deal with the backlog of appointments

NHS Stockport said it was highly unlikely any pay would be deducted. Its spokesman said trusts would find it too difficult to calculate any deductions.

Dean Royles, head of NHS Employers, which advises health managers, said: 'The way doctors work can be complex and many will continue to treat emergency and urgent cases, so many organisations have put processes in place for pay as part of their contingency plans to ensure safe care on the day of action.

'This will often involve a proportionate deduction recognising pay for partial performance on the day.

'Many staff will not be participating in the action and will be paid as normal.'

Mr Royles confirmed that doctors would not have pay docked if they managed to slot in clinics on Friday morning, for example, when they may have otherwise have been doing paperwork.

They would then have to do these administrative chores in their spare time.

Some hospitals, however, are planning to cut betwee n 30 and 50 per cent of salaries for Thursday for those that take part.

Other sites have decided to pay doctors nothing. Last week Andrew Lansley urged GPs to consider opening their surgeries this Saturday to help deal with the backlog of appointments.

In a letter to Hamish Meldrum, the BMA's chair of council, the Health Secretary pointed out that 'today's routine appointments can become tomorrows emergencies'.

Responding to the letter, Dr Meldrum insisted that patient safety would not be put in jeopardy.

'Tens of thousands of grassroots doctors feel so strongly that the changes to their pension scheme are unfair and unnecessary that they have decided to take industrial action â€" the first time in almost 40 years,' he added.

'This is why doctors will be in their usual workplaces and patient safety remains their top priority.'

The BMA has not confirmed whether any GPs are planning to work on Saturday but insists any lost work will be mad e up at a later date

It is highly unlikely that they will take Mr Lansley's advice however as most have not worked at weekends since 2004 when a contract negotiated by Labour enabled them to opt out.

Doctors say they already pay a far higher proportion of their salaries into their pensions than other NHS workers.

A BMA spokesman said the decision whether to pay striking doctors lay with individual trusts.


 

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My dad was due to have an investigative heart procedure on this strike day and the family have been worrying that his appointment would be cancelled when he arrived. He has been worrying a lot about it and had a heart attack yesterday and was rushed to hospital. He is ok and will be in hospital for 5 days now and they are moving the procedure forward so it will miss that day. Can't help wondering if the worry of all this perhaps didn't help, although we all said ironically now he will get his investigative procedure. This is actually true not made up.

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My GP saved my life and made it possible for me to return to work and to enjoy my life. This is why I will be supporting Drs on Thursday. The alternative is that they will withdraw from the NHS and we will all be required to have health insurance. Does anyone actually believe that these attacks on Public Servants' pensions will put more cash in your pocket. It won't. Govts have skimmed £1 billion from the teachers' pension fund and £2 billion from Dr's fund. This was profit - surplus. These pensions are affordable. As for my MP, he claimed £100 for ink for his home printer last month, whilst the average Dr works 10 hours per week in unpaid overtime. Who costs you more? Drs contribute billions to the economy through their work. They cost way less than they cost us.

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So we have reached the stage, when you can strike on full pay, not only MP's on the gravy train then.

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P Grant - it is a fatuous argument to compare salaries. Should we all be paid the same or be awarded according to our level of qualifications or skills? The specialised content of our work? What incentive would there be to these exceptionally clever people if their pay was as low as yours? Why would anyone be a Dr if the pay and pension did not reflect the uniqueness and importance of the role?

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There is a huge amount of misinformation being put out by the govt and then promoted by DM. Unfortunately for the Dr's the BMA are pretty much a waste of space when it comes to getting across the facts and supporting the Dr's. I have quite a few GP and hospital Dr friends. None of them come close to earning the £110k salaries quoted. Most earn about half this figure. I think people would be surprised to learn that new hospital consultants earn £70k rising to £100k at retirement. Not massive money when you take into account the years of training, ridiculous hours, and having to move hospital (and home) every year until your in your late 30's. Finding a banker who is at the top end of their profession on £70k is impossible. Same for lawyers. And footballers make more in a week than a Dr makes in a year. Is this right? With regard to pensions their pensions were only just renegotiated 4 years ago. Their fund runs in a surplus. Why pick on the Dr's? Their pension pot is in order.

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I am sure that all those doctors that go on strike will give their days pay to charity?

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The doctors' pension scheme is funded by doctors from their wages, and the government has been creaming off 2 billion pounds annually for the last few years - this excess has not been left 'in the pot', it has been taken with no consultation. Overall the scheme puts money into the public purse. Frankly (as a non-GP) I am disgusted at the comments here regarding general practice. We in hospital could not do our jobs without the support of GPs, who are specialists in their own right. GPs pick up the earliest signs of life-threatening illnesses, make referrals and co-ordinate complex regimes of treatment. A good GP is worth his weight in gold.

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The doctors getting paid whilst on strike fantastic. Bet they don,t pay their admin staff whilst on strike or tell them to take it as their holiday entitlement

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The articles in this paper only seek to try and destroy confidence in the NHS. I am a Practice Manager, my GPs are not striking and still offering a normal service. In fact I am not aware of many surgeries in the Oxfordshire area that are striking. BTW, striking would still mean offering urgent care, so patient care in essence will not suffer. The main area that this will hit is secondary care, with hospitals cancelling clinics etc... Oh and by the way, the theory that GPs earn 100k + a year is nonsense. Well certainly in Oxford, maybe in the leafy suburbs, I think my GPs earn way much less then they should when you take into consideration their experience and the extremely challenging clientele they serve.

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Whoa.....you're joking aren't you...430 pounds a day.....thats whats wrong with this country....greed greed and more greed. I work my butt off 8 hours a day for the princely sum of 50 pounds (before tax). Now I understand that these people have had to work hard and come from the right background to get where they are but seriously...and we wonder why the country is in the state its in!!!

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